Missoula Fresh Markets sold to Yoke's

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storewanderer
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Missoula Fresh Markets sold to Yoke's

Post by storewanderer »

These are the former Safeway units in Missoula. They were being supplied by Associated Utah.

I assume this means they will be supplied by URM going forward. Associated Utah and URM are quite similar, really an independent can't go wrong with either one of the suppliers and the programs between the two are also very similar. A rare loss of stores for Associated Utah though, I am surprised Associated Utah could not find one of its own customers to take the stores over.

Looking at both stores they still look like Safeway inside and if I had to venture a guess I'd suspect they weren't doing particularly well. Maybe Yoke's can upscale the stores a bit, it would probably work in Missoula.
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Re: Missoula Fresh Markets sold to Yoke's

Post by Brian Lutz »

I see that one of these stores has a Rosauer's store nearby, and a WinCo right next door to that. I also see that URM does have quite a few stores (mostly small town Family Foods and Harvest Foods stores with some Super 1s and Rosauer's stores in the larger towns) so they are probably better equipped than Associated to supply stores in Montana. From what I've seen of URM stores in general they can be a mixed bag (depends a lot on the operator), but Yoke's and Rosauer's seem to be on the nicer side of their operations.
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Re: Missoula Fresh Markets sold to Yoke's

Post by storewanderer »

Brian Lutz wrote: June 15th, 2022, 9:10 am I see that one of these stores has a Rosauer's store nearby, and a WinCo right next door to that. I also see that URM does have quite a few stores (mostly small town Family Foods and Harvest Foods stores with some Super 1s and Rosauer's stores in the larger towns) so they are probably better equipped than Associated to supply stores in Montana. From what I've seen of URM stores in general they can be a mixed bag (depends a lot on the operator), but Yoke's and Rosauer's seem to be on the nicer side of their operations.
I think Associated a number of years ago closed fairly small distribution centers in Montana, as I recall they had two small/outdated warehouses. At the time they supplied about 100 stores in Montana which I think skewed toward being much smaller independents. Currently Associated supplies about 75 stores in Montana (about to become 73 stores I guess).
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Re: Missoula Fresh Markets sold to Yoke's

Post by retailfanmitchell019 »

storewanderer wrote: June 14th, 2022, 11:22 pm Looking at both stores they still look like Safeway inside and if I had to venture a guess I'd suspect they weren't doing particularly well. Maybe Yoke's can upscale the stores a bit, it would probably work in Missoula.
Albertsons still has a strong grip on the Missoula grocery scene, with 4 stores. Looking at some of your Photobucket stuff, there was an Albertsons in Missoula that still had a Buttrey interior (when was that taken?). Albertsons bought 3 stores from Buttrey in Missoula, and then built a Grocery Palace type store on Russell St in Missoula shortly after the Buttrey acquisition.
I think Albertsons divested a store there to Smith's, who failed with it.
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Re: Missoula Fresh Markets sold to Yoke's

Post by storewanderer »

retailfanmitchell019 wrote: June 20th, 2022, 6:45 pm
storewanderer wrote: June 14th, 2022, 11:22 pm Looking at both stores they still look like Safeway inside and if I had to venture a guess I'd suspect they weren't doing particularly well. Maybe Yoke's can upscale the stores a bit, it would probably work in Missoula.
Albertsons still has a strong grip on the Missoula grocery scene, with 4 stores. Looking at some of your Photobucket stuff, there was an Albertsons in Missoula that still had a Buttrey interior (when was that taken?). Albertsons bought 3 stores from Buttrey in Missoula, and then built a Grocery Palace type store on Russell St in Missoula shortly after the Buttrey acquisition.
I think Albertsons divested a store there to Smith's, who failed with it.
The Missoula photos were from around 2006 maybe, it was a long time ago now.

I don't think Smiths was in business in Missoula longer than about a year.

I also think Albertsons is planning to build a new store in Missoula but I can't seem to find any details.
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